(upbeat music) ♪ ♪ Yeah, the simple things in life ♪ ♪ - My guest is Dr. Nathan Gonzales, curator at the Lincoln Memorial Shrine located in Redlands.

Welcome, and thank you for joining us!

- Thank you so much for inviting me to be with you today.

- So, I've lived in the Inland Empire all my life, except for a couple stints when I went away to college, but I'm guessing that the memorial might be the best kept secret.

Because I've lived here all my life, and for me, I had only seen the little outdoor of a building, and that's it.

So, I want you to go over kind of the overall of the shrine, of the memorial and how it landed in Redlands.

- You are not alone in believing that this is probably a best kept secret, because I'm amazed with the number of people who have grown up in Redlands and have never been inside the museum, even though it's been there since 1932.

It's a great museum.

It was created because the donor who was a gentleman named Robert Watchorn, and his wife, Alma, were winter residents in Redlands.

And they believed that there needed to be something out here to help people understand the importance of Abraham Lincoln as the 16th president.

So, they're the ones who created the entire museum and then gifted it to the city of Redlands to be managed by A.K.

Smiley Public Library.

- Okay.

So, let's talk about some of the exhibits that are permanent, those that have maybe come and passed through over the years, and those that might be coming our way.

- The only real permanent exhibit in the museum is a Carrara marble bust of Abraham Lincoln that was sculpted by an artist named George Grey Barnard.

He was a fantastic sculptor in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and created this sculpture.

Robert Watchorn purchased it while he was living in New York in the early 1920s, soon after the death of their son, Emory Ewart Watchorn, which is a whole other story that we can chat about, if you like!

And, the memorial was designed around this piece of sculpture.

In addition to that, the ceilings are murals that depict either aspects of Lincoln's character or the character of the American people.

They're kind of two different schools of thought about that, but those are really the only things that are permanent and they're permanent, 'cause they can't be moved, right?

Everything else changes.

There are a couple different reasons for that.

One is that if things never change, then you never have a reason to come back, right?

And we have so many things that aren't on exhibit that if things never changed, you'd never get to see those things.

And then in addition, there are some issues regarding preservation and making sure that the items that we have, we have for as long as we possibly can.

So, that's our stewardship component to that because some things, like paper, disintegrate much more easily than stone, right?

(both laughing) So, we need to make sure that we keep these things as long as we possibly can.

And, that has to do with light and temperature and humidity, and all of those things coming together.

- What would you say are some of the-- I don't know.

I'm sure you think they're all very cool, but some of the cool attractions?

Some of the things that you think people go with the, 'oh, ah!'

Ooh, I didn't know that.'

Or, what have been some of those exhibits?

- The one that comes to mind most readily is a quilt that was created during the Civil War by a group of women who were living in Massachusetts.

And the idea was that they made this quilt that was then given to the United States Sanitary Commission, and then it was sold to benefit soldiers.

Each of the different women who worked on the quilt signed the center of their quilt square, which is really cool.

And then, there's a whole love story that goes along with it because the young man who bought the quilt wrote to some of them and one young woman decided it was not proper to be corresponding with someone that she had never met, and was older than she was but her sister didn't seem to have that issue!

So, the two of them began a correspondence and eventually married and ended up in the Montana territory, I think, before descendants of theirs ended up in Redlands.

And, that's how the quilt came to the Lincoln Shrine.

- Oh, I love that!

I love the backstory, especially since it's kind of a little gossipy and still a good story.

(he laughs) So, very good.

- It's a great story!

It's on exhibit now.

We haven't had it on for a number of years, specifically for the reasons that I mentioned earlier in terms of light sensitivity.

And, everything will fade eventually, and we don't want that to happen to these fabrics, but it's on exhibit right now.

We just brought it out last week.

- Ah, nice.

What will we learn about Abraham Lincoln?

- There's so much to learn about Abraham Lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln is a very complex individual.

And one of the most interesting things for me, learning about him, is kind of his journey of understanding.

From someone who grew up really on the American frontier, and then became politically active and had seen enslavement of people when he was young and on a trip down the Mississippi River.

Knowing that was wrong but living in a world where it was acceptable or at least legally supported.

And then to see him transform while president, going from someone who understood that he-- if the United States was to be preserved, it maybe meant preserving slavery because that's what the constitution said, to a point of emancipation and pushing for a change in the United States Constitution in the form of the 13th Amendment, which abolished forever the institution of enslavement.

- When I was researching for this interview, and I might put you on the spot here and if you don't know it, it's okay.

But do you know some of the nicknames that he had and maybe the origins of those nicknames?

- Oh, goodness!

I'm sure he had many, not all of which were complimentary!

(laughter) - I didn't know that one, okay!

- But, certainly "The Railsplitter" is probably the most well known, that and "Honest Abe", right?

Those are probably the two that are best known.

And, "The Railsplitter" bit comes kind of harkening back to his youth on the frontier.

And supposedly, he was able to split rails to create fences very well.

And, that image was used in his campaigns to kind of show him as this rough-and-ready frontier person.

- Kinda guy, yeah.

And he was very tall and being able to do that, probably-- - 6'4".

- Yeah, big guy.

Yeah.

- Tall by today's standards, even.

- It is!

And then, of course, going in elementary school, we always heard the "Honest Abe."

- Of course.

- And, that because we think he always told the truth?

- No, I'm not sure that I-- he was a political creature!

I think he- (laughter) - Point well taken!

- Very, very well knew how to speak with particular audiences.

And to be quite honest, I don't recall right off exactly where the "Honest Abe" came from!

(laughter) But, it's certainly the one we all remember from growing up.

- So, I want you to step aside for a second and first, let me ask you, have you ever been to Disneyland in Anaheim?

- I have!

- Okay.

- I grew up in Southern California.

- Okay!

So with that said, (he laughs) you've seen Mr. Lincoln in the presentation.

What do you think of it and its accuracy?

- I love "Great Moments with Mr.

Lincoln."

I remember seeing the original "Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln" when I was a kid in the 1980s.

And I remember being impressed, of course, by the animatronic aspect.

I mean, here's this attraction.

This person seems to come alive, come to life.

And, when I saw the new completely recreated or reconstructed "Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln" a few years ago, it was newer technology.

It was slightly different narration that went along with it.

I think it's a great experience and it's a wonderful way to try to make history accessible.

- I wonder if people are ever surprised, not historians like yourself, but common people, that history is not their thing and we just learn a few things.

But, do you think people are ever surprised that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican?

- Yeah, but there's a couple different reasons for that.

I mean, the Republican Party of 1856 and 1860, is very different than the Republican Party of 2020, 2022.

So, I think there is that confusion.

But, yeah.

I'm sure people are all the time, if they're not familiar with the story, could take today's-- how they understand politics today and then assume that because the names are the same, that it meant that they could also understand the politics of yesterday.

And, it's just history is a little more messy than that.

- Tell me about the relationship or what you are able to share with Mary Todd.

Was she a help or a hindrance, or a challenge in his political career?

- I suspect she was all of those things.

She was absolutely intrinsic in his political career.

I think she was a great advocate for him going into politics to the degree that he did.

And I think she was very helpful to him in a number of ways, but also, she had her own individual sensibilities and her own challenges, as I'm sure every relationship does.

And so, that can be kind of a challenge, too!

(laughter) I mean, she is-- one of the more interesting moments is when she overspent on redecorating the White House!

- She got in a little bit of trouble there?

(he laughs) - Yeah, she did!

And he had to go to the Secretary of the Treasury to get it ironed out.

- So, she did have her ways and her thoughts.

Now they had children, right?

They had four children?

- Four children.

And, this is one of the-- Mary Todd Lincoln gets, I think, kind of a bad rap sometimes because we know some of the things that happened to her after her presidency, or after his presidency, where she had a number of challenges.

But, when you see-- you lose your first child in the 1850s, then you lose another child in the early 1860s while they're at the White House, then your husband is murdered in front of you, and then you lose your third child, and only one is able to live out a full life.

I don't think anyone can really, really manage that.

That's just tough.

- Yeah, I didn't know all that.

I just know that they had the four children.

I didn't know that they had passed to the degree that you just explained.

When people come to the memorial/museum/shrine, what do you think kids would enjoy the most?

What do you think they will latch on to?

Because-- I ask this because I think that parents at homeschool, this seems like a great place for they and their students, children, to go on a field trip, or to go and make it a learning day.

What do you think they most enjoy, or will see, or experience?

- Probably the thing that children seem to respond to the best (he chuckles) is an exhibit we have on Civil War era surgery.

I don't know what it is about that that is appealing, but you see the bone saw and you see a photograph of a pile of amputated limbs.

And for some reason, that seems to spark interest!

So, that's one of those "semi-permanent" types of exhibitions, just because kids, for some reason, seem to respond to that!

One of the messages we wanna make sure that we get through to everyone who comes in is the centrality of the role of enslavement and enslaved people in the American Civil War and in Lincoln's presidency.

So, there's a number of different ways that we do that with exhibits, but trying to find ways that-- to help young people understand what being enslaved might be like, and how different it is from any of our lives today.

- Just whatever method you can to engage students to-- and to wanna be there, to learn from it, to leave with a 'oh, wow!

I didn't know that.'

And, it's kind of what we say here at KVCR "where you learn something new every day."

It's the same kind of feeling.

I thought for the exhibits, you-- I didn't know about this one!

I thought you were gonna talk either (Nathan laughs) about the photo op, or the telegraph.

Is the telegraph still there?

- [Nathan] Oh!

Absolutely!

- Okay, so tell me about both of those.

- A few years ago, we were trying to figure out some interesting ways that we could create interactive exhibits and the telegraph was relatively new technology, but it was the first major conflict where that level of communication really made a difference in outcomes.

Because, you know, as battles were raging, these telegraph messages could be wired across to the War Department in Washington, D.C., and Lincoln could get almost immediate updates about what was going on.

And because I think a lot of young people today aren't familiar with that as a form of technology, 'cause they're busy playing on their iPhones, (laughs) thought what better way to make something that's interactive and educational at the same time?

And, I was able to locate some telegraph keys and fortunately, my dad has a great skill with electronics, and we put this together.

And, you can sit at one side and send a message in Morse code to a friend, or visitor or whatever sitting on the other side.

- So, are we maybe this far apart and I'm sending something to you and you're sending something back to me?

- Yeah, they're about five feet apart.

Something like that.

- Nice!

And, what about the photo op?

- We created a life-size cutout of Abraham Lincoln and encourage anyone who wants to come in to come in and have their picture taken with Lincoln!

- [Lillian] Oh, that's good.

So, is he standing or is he sitting 'cause he's- - [Nathan] He's sitting.

- [Lillian] Okay, so you did sit him.

And, they stand next to him while he's sitting?

- Exactly right.

And then, we hope everyone will do a hashtag Lincoln Shrine.

- [Lillian] Hashtag Lincoln Shrine.

- Or tag, what is it?

The at-symbol Lincoln Shrine.

- In your mind, what were his greatest accomplishments?

You touched on it briefly, but in all the years that you've been there and you've been following this and been supporting it, what do you feel were his greatest accomplishments?

- I think that's a pretty easy question to answer.

The most important accomplishment, A, is keeping the country whole.

When everyone says the Pledge of Allegiance today, part of the meaning has been shifted a little bit in understanding.

Because, when we included "under God" in this position in the 1950s in the Pledge of Allegiance, it took "one nation" and split it from "indivisible."

"One nation indivisible": that is what Lincoln fought for.

So, when you say the pledge, you're actually talking about the Civil War in some ways and Lincoln's presidency.

And then of course, right next to that, in terms of importance, is ending the enslavement of human beings because what is more-- what is the opposite of liberty?

Enslavement.

And yet, here we are a nation of liberty.

So, he knew it was wrong.

Many, many, many Americans knew that enslaving other people at that period of time was wrong and it took a war and a constitutional amendment to write it.

- Alright.

Let's talk about the museum a little bit.

Do you ever get donated items?

- Absolutely.

That's my favorite way to get materials for the collections is when people donate them!

- What kind of items would be donated and what kind of items are appreciated?

I mean, 'cause sometimes you're just gonna say, 'oh, I can't use that'.

But you don't wanna be rude to the person that's making this big sacrifice.

So, what kind of items have you received and you thought this is gonna be really cool?

(he chuckles) - The most common kind of donation we get is books.

And, we always accept books with the understanding that if there's something that's already in our collection, that we can sell it to benefit the museum, and nearly, everybody is-- I mean, like 99.9% of people are totally okay with that because they wanna do good.

And, they know that the books will go to people who are appreciative.

On the far other side of the spectrum, every once in a while, doesn't happen very often, but every once in a while, a family may have some document that was either written or signed by Lincoln.

- No!

- And, they know that it needs to be in a good home and we'll come by and say, you know, we'll start chatting.

And, 'would you like that?'

'Absolutely!

(laughter) 'Absolutely, we would like that in the collection.

And then, there's sort of everything in between.

It's a challenge to build a collection when it is a collecting field for so many people, some of whom have very deep pockets.

Which means that if we're trying to acquire something by purchase, because we maybe have a group of donors who want to contribute to that, we're going up against some pretty big names and pretty big institutions.

- So, others competing for that same prize, - [Nathan] Exactly.

- probably maybe deeper pockets than we might have here-- - Exactly, right.

Why do you think the memorial-- why is it important to, or is it important to the residents of Redlands and to our region?

Many of the people in our region probably don't know about it.

I'm sure many of the people that live in Redlands know something about it.

But, why do you think it's important to the city of Redlands?

- All of our towns are unique in some way.

And, one of the things that helps Redlands have its own unique identity is by the institutions that are located there.

And, we often think about the Redlands Bowl or maybe Prospect Park, certainly A.K.

Smiley Public Library, if people are familiar with libraries.

University of Redlands has a beautiful campus.

But, the Lincoln Memorial Shrine is important not only because it's unique in terms of its architectural style, but it is the stories that it tells.

There's nothing that serves that need full-time in Southern California, really, west of the Mississippi River.

We're the only museum and research center dedicated exclusively to the study of Abraham Lincoln and the American Civil War-- - Really?

- west of the Mississippi and it's located right here in the IE.

- Wow, I didn't know that.

Okay.

How is the museum funded?

How do you guys raise money to keep things going?

- This was a prescient thought by the donors back in the 1930s by deeding it to the city of Redlands to be managed by the public library.

And I don't know if that's still true, but for a long time, we were the only public library in the state that also operated a museum and research center like that.

So, we're funded as part of the public library.

In addition to that though, there's an organization called the Watchorn Lincoln Memorial Association, which was created by the donors in the 1930s as well, because they knew that there was going to be a need for additional funds to ensure that this museum could last into the future.

And that organization now, it's 501(C)(3), private nonprofit, holds an endowment fund of more than $2.5 million.

And the income that is generated by that money then comes back for acquisitions and for other kinds of needs that the museum has.

- Staff?

How big is that staff?

- Well, the staff for the whole division is three full-time people and a handful of part-time people and a whole lot of volunteers.

And that is for the museum itself, plus this whole special collections division, which also includes materials related to the history of Redlands, the Inland Empire and Southern California.

- Now the staff part, is that funded by the city?

- [Nathan] It is.

- Okay, so that's where your check would come from is the city of Redlands.

Okay.

And all the other things are by the endowment-- - Correct.

- and with that funds.

Okay.

So, let's talk about where is it located?

How can people learn more about it?

And, tell me about when the tours take place.

- The Lincoln Memorial Shrine is located at 125 West Vine Street in Redlands.

And for those who may be listening or watching and are familiar with Redlands, we are right across Eureka Street from the Redlands Bowl.

It's a beautiful Indiana limestone structure that's in an octagonal shape.

It's hard to miss right there in Smiley Park.

We can also be found online at lincolnshrine.org.

- And, tours?

Are they-- what are your hours?

- We're open to the public Tuesday through Sunday from 1 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. And our admission is always free because we believe very strongly that everyone should have access to understanding their history.

We do, do group tours and we schedule those for the morning times when we're closed so that they can have a more-- a unique experience without having a million other people wandering around about them!

But, yeah.

It's in the mornings And, they just have to give us a call, or shoot us an email through our website and we can set up tour groups.

We usually do about 15 people-plus.

- Is the curator ever the tour guide or do you have volunteers for that that are giving the tours?

- We are an all persons-on-deck kind of operation.

(chuckling) So, I do tours.

My colleagues do tours and certainly, our volunteers help us out with that, as well.

- Now as I started this interview, I indicated that I thought it might have been the best kept secret.

And, when you were first telling me where it was located, I thought, 'oh, that's where I took my children to have their senior portraits taken!'

We did their pictures out there.

(Nathan chuckles) The photographer was there.

And I just remember the building and them being in front of it.

And I had no idea what was behind it, but now we know what's behind those doors.

So, Nathan, thank you so much for your information and hopefully, you'll get a few more visitors.

- Thank you very much and I hope we do, too!

- [Narrator] This program was originally produced for 91.9 KVCR Radio.

(upbeat music) ♪ ♪ Yeah, the simple things in life ♪ ♪